Big House on the Prairie
 

by David Prill

  In a cornfield nowhere in rural southwestern Minnesota, a man was building. At first his neighbors and family paid him little notice; Ted Padgett liked to work with his hands, with his tools, and to see him under the spell of saw and hammer wasn't unusual. However, as the days accumulated and Ted's creation began to take form, the questions began.

"Ted, what in the heck are you up to?"

"Ted, what in the heck are you doing out there?

"Ted, what in the heck kind of deal are you building there?"

Even his wife joined the chorus of concern. She said, in a gruff and somewhat deep voice, "Hon, you sure are busy out there in that cornfield. What in the heck are you up to, then?"

"Just building something. Keeping busy."

"But what is it?"

"Better than going into town and loafing and playing pinochle with the boys."

"Yes, that's true, dear, but what kind of deal is it, then?"

"I … I'm not sure. And that's the honest truth." He drained his metal coffee cup and pushed away from the table. "Gotta get back to work." He headed for the back door, which overlooked the cornfield of questions. What he had built so far looked fine under the early evening firmament.

"You're going to work yourself into a heap," his wife said, tugging down the cuffs of her blue denim work shirt so that her fingertips were barely visible.

"I'll be back before dark."

"You know, Ted, the neighbors are beginning to talk."

"Let them talk."

"But what should I tell them?"

"Tell them to mind their own darn business."

Ted left the house and hurried back to the field, his black lab Maggie trotting alongside him. Ted knew his behavior was a concern for Marge; he wasn't so far gone that he wasn't aware of that. He knew he was becoming obsessed. This thing had a hold on him, and he didn't know why. Those strange dreams, the voices. He was a tool, a human tool, for something greater than himself. That much he knew. It scared him a little, yet he was also curious. He wasn't hurting anybody; he was building. He always liked to build things.

When he reached the site, Ted circled around the structure, surveying his work. Won't be long now. Won't be long at all. Strapping on his heavy tool belt, Ted climbed the ladder and lost himself in the job.


 

The next thing Ted heard was his wife's voice calling to him from the bullfrog darkness.

"Ted! Ted! Are you okay out there? It's dark out, why don't you come in? Have some supper why don't you, then?"

There was barely enough light to see his work. Ted climbed down from the ladder and took a long look. Good progress had been made. What he was making was great. He felt a sense of satisfaction that came from without.

Ted whistled as he strode back to the house.

"My goodness, you shouldn't be out there in the dark, you could hurt yourself," Marge said in a tough voice. "Come on in. Supper's getting cold."

Ted washed up and came to the table.

"I have some news," said Marge, serving up soupy sloppy joes and undercooked potatoes. "Billy called. He's coming home."

Billy hadn't been home for a visit in years. He'd been living in Australia since he left grad school, writing feature stories for the various wire services. On the dingo and so forth. He had sent them copies.

Ted didn't like to admit it, didn't like to show emotion of any kind normally, but he missed the boy something fierce.

"That's fine, Marge. It will be real fine to see the boy again. How long is he staying for, then?"

"For good."

"For life …"

"He said he wants to get back to his roots, lead a more simple life."

"Well, that's fine. If he wants a simple life, he couldn't have picked a better place. Not much has changed since he left."

"Ain't that the truth," said his wife with her usual virility, shrouding her face in the shadows.


 

You can go home again, you can, you can, you really, truly can, Billy Padgett repeated to himself as his rental car cut through the Valley of the Jolly Green Giant, the town of LeSeuer and the winding Minnesota River on his left, craggy limestone bluffs on his right. It was a warm, breezy Saturday in mid-July, and he was going home.

In Australia, he thought, it's winter now. Now I'm in summerland. Another world, a world I once owned. The intervening years collapsed upon themselves, and it felt like he was returning home from a long weekend up north. He was travelling light. He had disposed of most of his possessions in Melbourne, sent the rest home by boat, and took a couple boxes of essentials with him on the plane.

But what did you really need when you were heading to the sacred acres of home? It had been a relatively quick decision, not a sudden urge but a rapid dawning that this was where he needed to be. His boss didn't understand, but then bosses never do. Chalk it up to a fatal case of homesickness. It would be good to see old mom and dad again, do some time with them, visit old friends, his boyhood haunts. He couldn't wait.

In a short time, Billy left the river valley, cutting through Mankato, then took the Highway 169 exit and cruised south. The land was flat, and the corn was high. This was up-at-dawn-to-bed-by-dusk country. Good people. Stable people. My people. Yes, Billy thought, racing down the black belt that cut through the tunnel of corn, tassels rippling in his wake, that's what I like best about small towns. They never change.

In a little while, Billy passed through Garden City and then made his way east, through Willow River Township, and finally he spotted the water tower, the top of the tallest downtown buildings (which weren't very tall at all), and in the distance, on the crest of a hillock overlooking the town, a set of large dark buildings that Billy didn't recognize. New construction. Progress finally comes to Plum Creek. The structures looked gloomy and institutional, like a school or hospital. He reminded himself to ask his folks about them.

Main Street, a postcard picture that never changed. There was Hank's Hardware, and Roy's Barber Shop, Fleet Farm, Ogle's Feed Store, Princess Theater, the Korner Kut-Rate … I have to stop for this, it's too good, Billy thought, pulling over to the curb right outside the drug store. They had notions and magazines and a soda fountain, he remembered. As he approached the door, he felt like he was ten years old again and had just walked uptown with a shiny quarter to buy the latest worlds-smashing issue of The Justice League of America.

The bell jingled overhead as Billy stepped inside. He expected to feel a blast of air-conditioning, but the interior was still and dim and hot. Finding it impossible to break old habits, he followed the ghosts of footprints past along the scuffed wooden floor right to the magazine rack in the back of the store. He scanned the titles, half-expecting to see the latest issue of The Flash, maybe even one of those eighty-page giants that miraculously seemed to show up when you needed it most. But apparently they had moved the comics or stopped carrying them entirely. Didn't kids read comic books anymore?

Instead, he saw: Guns and Ammo, Prison Life, Cell Beautiful … He poked around in the aisles, stocked with nylon ropes, black gloves, ski masks … The masks made sense—Minnesota summers were notoriously brief.

He approached the counter, where a disinterested young man with tattooed forearms stood watch. At least the newspaper was still in business. Billy took a copy of the Plum Creek Plaindealer from the rack and placed it on the counter. As the clerk rang it up, Billy tried to catch his eye, wanting to strike up a conversation. When it became apparent the boy wasn't biting, he folded the paper over and left the drug store, the door clanging shut behind him.

Back outside, Billy held up the brick wall, beneath the green-striped awning rippling in the winds of home. This pace appealed to him. He opened the paper, scanning the headlines.


 

JIM MILTON BUYS NEW CAR STEREO
–A Green Escort, License #HYV 9184, Usually Parked Outside Legion Hall–

MRS. FRANK BLESSUS WALKS ALONE EVERY EVENING ON ELM STREET
–8-8:30 P.M. Mon-Fri., 7:15-7:45 weekends–

BOB WAGNER FAMILY TO TAKE VACATION JULY 21-28
–See page 3 for floor plan and best points of entry–

Billy absently flipped through the rest of the paper, some guardian part of him knowing something wasn't right but too overtaken with his own homecoming emotions and thoughts to truly comprehend. He just figured the editor had an offbeat sense of humor. He returned to his car, tucking the paper into the map holder, and drove back down Main Street.

When he reached the stoplight at the corner of Main and First, site of the old Plum Creek Hotel, a young woman in a denim shirt and jeans, her hair bundled beneath a black baseball cap, entered the crosswalk, passing in front of his car with a swift, sure gait.

Billy gazed at her blankly for a moment before recognition kicked in.

It was Chris, his old girlfriend from high school. They had gone to the Prom together, and dated for a couple of years before getting into a spat over some foolish, forgotten slight. Before he left for college, they had a long, emotional talk and parted as friends. They'd written a few letters, but as often happens, the correspondence eventually lost steam and they lost touch with each other.

Which way was she going? Straight down First Avenue, from the looks of it.

The light changed, and Billy let one car go by, then made a quick left turn, just beating another car to the intersection. After he spotted Chris again, striding down the left side of the street, he went by her and pulled over to the right hand curb outside the post office.

"Chris! Hey Chris!" he called out, waving as he trotted to her side of the street.

She stopped, giving him an uncertain but not unfriendly look.

"Hello … Billy? Billy …"

Their hands reached out to touch, then she wrapped him up in a happy bearhug.

When they separated, he said, "You look great. Have you been working out?"

"Not really." She buried her hands in her pockets. "So you're here on a visit, then? You were working in Australia, last I heard."

"Not a visit," he said. "I'm moving back home. For good."

"For life."

"Yes, I guess you could say that."

"I'm not sure you're going to like it. Things have changed, Billy."

"Seems like the same old Plum Creek to me," said Billy, giving the town a sweeping look. "So, what are you doing these days?" he said, returning his gaze to her. "You must have a family and everything by now."

"Oh, no," said Chris. "I'm pretty much unattached, actually. I've had a few boyfriends, you know, like everyone, but they were all short-lived things."

"Where are you working?"

"At the furniture store. I'm assistant manager."

"Good for you." He glanced away, nervous about asking her, then met her eyes again. "Say, Chris, do you think you'd want to get together sometime? Maybe dinner and a movie or something?"

She smiled. "Sure. That'd be great. Can't remember the last time I had a real date."

"How about tomorrow night?"

"Tomorrow night it is," she said. "You're staying at your folks'?"

"Until I can get squared away, yeah."

"I'll call you there."

"Great … It's really nice to see you again, Chris."

"Wonderful to see you again, Billy."

Billy jogged back across the street to his car. Now that was more like it, he thought, sliding behind the wheel. Things had seemed a little off-kilter when he first arrived, but having the good fortune to not only run into Chris, but having her be single and available, and so willing to make a date, almost like she was waiting for him, well, that was just a dream. A very promising sign on his first day back on home ground.


 

In no time, Billy turned down the long, descending gravel drive leading to the Padgett family farm, which was located just beyond the south edge of town. A dog barked. Billy circled the yard, then eased the car to a stop beneath the dying elm tree near the hen house. A black dog came up to the car, and as the door opened, she vaulted across Billy's lap and sat alert and ready to ride in the passenger seat.

"Hey, pal, we're not going anywhere," Billy said, getting out, pulling the dog along. "We're here to stay." He knelt down and stroked the dog's head. "You were just a pup when I left, Maggie. Look how much you've grown. You're a big girl now. Do you remember me?"

A jab with a wet nose gave him the answer.

Billy laughed and gave Maggie a pat on the rump, sending her scooting around the farmyard in crazy circles.

"Billy, you're home!" his mother called out from the front step, the screen door banging shut behind her.

Billy hurried up the walk to greet her, stopping first as was the custom to clean the bottom of his shoes on the manure scraper, an upright plate of rusted metal embedded into the end of the sidewalk. A date was etched in the concrete: 1947.

After her vigorous embrace, Billy said, "Great to see you, Mom. It's fantastic to be home again."

"We're so glad you came back, Son."

"Do you have a cold, Mom? Your voice seems kinda hoarse."

"No, I never felt better. Oh, my leg gets a little stiff when it rains, but I can't complain."

He looked beyond her to the house. "Where's Dad?"

"He's around back, in the cornfield."

"How's the crop looking this year?"

"Why don't you go right on back and ask him, dear. He's really been looking forward to seeing you again."

Billy traipsed around the barn, Maggie tagging along. Grasshoppers fled from his feet in waves of green and brown.

Out back, the corn looked fine, but carved out of the corn was a clearing, and in that clearing stood the frame of a small, two-story structure. His dad was up on a ladder, driving nails.

"Hey, Pop!"

His dad looked over his shoulder, and his eyes lit up. He climbed down from his perch, and father and son met on the edge of the field.

They shook hands.

"Welcome home, William."

"Thanks. It's great to be back."

"Good, good."

"What's it going to be, Dad?" Billy asked, nodding at the corn-bred edifice.

His dad stroked his chin, looking far out. "Well, that's the deal. You ever get one of those ideas in your head that you just can't get out, no matter how hard you try?"

"Sure." Like my idea to come home, Billy thought.

"Reckon I'll know what it is by the time I'm done."

"Sure you will."

"Have you seen your mother yet?"

"Yes, and she hasn't changed a bit," he lied. "Neither have you."

His dad glanced eagerly back at the structure. "Well, I'd better get back to work."

"Already? I just got home. Why don't you take a break and come back to the house. Mom can make some lemonade."

He paused, as if listening, then said, "Sorry, Billy, I just can't leave it now. I'll be back in time for supper. I get a little wrapped up in what I'm doing sometimes, so if I don't come in after the first few calls, you come out and fetch me." With that, he hustled back to his project, taking his place on the ladder as if he had never left.


 

Back at the house, Billy expected to find his mom baking or canning or sewing, and yes, indeed, she was sitting in her sewing room behind her old black Singer, hunched over, expertly maneuvering a blue work shirt beneath the flashing needle.

"Hey, Mom."

"Did you talk to your father?"

"Yeah. What's that he's building out there?"

"Heaven knows," she said, still focused on her shirt. "He's always got some project he's working on. Idle hands, you know."

"Say, Mom, what are those new buildings on the edge of town, up on the hill? I saw them when I was driving in."

"New buildings? The hospital? The middle school?"

"No, I know what those look like. This is new, at least since the last time I was here."

"You've been away a long time."

"I know."

"The years all sort of run together after a while, don't they?" She glanced back at him. "Billy, why don't you help yourself to a snack from the refrigerator. It's going to be a while yet before supper."

"Thanks, I'll do that. I haven't eaten anything since the plane."

Mom looks a little odd, Billy thought, making for the kitchen. The years really have taken a toll on her. That hair on her lip, dark hair. On her hands, too. He knew that happened to older people; in fact, he remembered Aunt Lucille, who had several sessions with the electrolysis machine and still had hair where none should be. It wasn't just his mom, though. Everyone he'd seen since arriving in town looked a little more rough-hewn than he remembered, especially the women. He chalked it up to his years mingling with the beautiful, tanned Aussies.

Billy opened the fridge. Inside was a collection of the pale and the spoiled. Most of it was unidentifiable. He removed a platter of chicken, then quickly returned it to the shelf after seeing blood pooling on the plate and a collection of white, leggy bugs scuttling to safety beneath a thigh.

Billy wondered if his mother had fallen prey to Alzheimer's disease. She had always been so meticulous about her housekeeping and the cleanliness of herself and her family. He remembered being sent back to the bathroom on more than one occasion for another round with the scrub brush after showing up at supper with dirt between his fingers.

Later, he watched her make dinner, and it didn't ease his concern. She prepared a spaghetti dinner using leftover chili con carne and creamed chipped beef, washing off the cream sauce before scooping the beef into the spaghetti pan.

When his dad came in and they all took their places at the dining room table, and the small portions of her strange spaghetti were plopped down onto their plates, Billy wondered if his father, too, was in the early stages of something.

Dad wolfed down the grub like it was his last meal.

Billy poked at his rubbery chipped beef as it swam in the pale, orange sauce.

When Mom left the table to get some dread dessert, Billy leaned in close to his father and said, "What's happened to Mom's cooking? That was awful. I saw her wash off leftover chipped beef so there'd be some meat in the spaghetti sauce. And I found maggots or something on a piece of chicken in the fridge. Are you guys having money problems or something? If you are, I can help; I have some savings. Just ask, okay?"

"Well, there have not been any riots or lives in jeopardy," his dad said matter-of-factly. "I know we are not always pleased with the food, but that's going to happen from time to time. No one's going hungry."

"Well, that's good at least."

In the middle of their runny green gelatin laced with brown, mushy banana slices, Billy said, "Hey, you know who I ran into already? Chris."

"Chris?" His mom looked puzzled. "Do I know him?"

"Chris Vale. From high school."

"Oh, that Chris. How's she doing, then?"

"Great. We're going out tomorrow."

"That was fast."

"I know. It was a fluke thing. She was walking uptown just as I drove through."

"She was always a nice girl."

"Don't mean to rush you, Son, but what are your plans, then?" asked his dad.

"I was thinking of doing some freelancing. Maybe write a book about my experiences in Australia. I don't suppose there are many jobs around."

"No, not so many," said his dad.

"The prison has loads of jobs," his mom blurted out.

His dad glowered at her.

"Prison? There's a prison in town? That's what I saw on the hill, isn't it?"

His mom stayed mum.

Dad had the floor. "Yeah, we've got a state prison. The Plum Creek Correctional Facility. They built it a few years ago. You can't really see it from town. It's like it isn't even here."

"Aren't you worried about prison breaks?"

Mom nudged Billy's plate closer to him. "You haven't touched your dessert, dear."

"Prisoners aren't likely to hang around town if they actually get beyond the prison walls," said his dad. "They're not going to be coming into the housing areas. They're going to leave. They're going to run. They're going to go down south. They're going to go north to Canada."

Billy shook his head. "A prison. I can't believe it. Why did the city council agree to it?"

"The prison saved this community," his father explained with wonder in his voice, his dessert puddling. "Before the prison came, Main Street was a graveyard. Everything was vacant and rundown. But now … Well, you saw how Main Street looked when you drove in. I don't think there's a single empty storefront now. You've got well-paid prison workers spending money in town, you've got relatives and friends of the incarcerated spending money in town, heck; once a month the prisoners even get to order food from McDonald's. The plain truth, Son, is that having a prison makes your town pretty well recession-proof."

The phone rang.

"That might be Chris," Billy said. "I told her to call."

His mom got the phone. "Why, yes, dear. How are you? Haven't seen you in an age. How are your folks, then? Good, good. Yes, he's right here. I'll get him." She held the receiver out for him, smiling knowingly. "For you."

Billy got up, grateful for the relief from his plate, and took the phone.

"Hey, stranger," he said. "You found me."

"You weren't hard to find. How are things going?"

"Couldn't be better," he said, then nonchalantly wandered into the living room, dropping his voice to a whisper, cupping his hand around the mouthpiece. "I think something is wrong with my mom. She's changed."

"Changed? How?"

"I … I'm not sure. I think there's something wrong in her mind."

"She's not a young woman anymore. Maybe she has Alzheimer's or something."

"I don't know. Maybe. Look, I'll tell you more when I see you. Are we still on for tomorrow night?"

"Naturally."

"I'll pick you up?"

"Okay. I live on the corner of St. Peter and South Seventh. 486."

He found a pen and wrote her address down on a corner of a newspaper. "Okay. Got it. See you then, Chris. I'm really looking forward to it."

"Me, too. Sleep tight."

"'Night." He set down the phone, tore off her address, and tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans.

Billy spent the evening watching TV with his parents, a never-ending series of reality shows about guns and gangsters, their laughter coming at the most inappropriate times.

Fortunately, Billy didn't have to feign fatigue. He was nodding off at the tail end of another gruesome hit parade, and rose from his chair with a yawn. "I'm ready to call it a night," he said. "Is my old room still my old room?"

"I changed the sheets this morning," his mom said. "You have yourself a good sleep and don't worry about getting up in the morning."

After Billy gathered his luggage from the porch, he opened the stairway door and headed on up, the creaks in exactly the same spots as he remembered. His room was down at the end of the hall, which was covered in purplish linoleum, buckled in several places due to some long-lost summer heat wave. He remembered it getting so stifling hot upstairs that they would drag his mattress downstairs and let him sleep on the cool dining room floor. A grand adventure for a young boy.

He flipped the light switch. There was his old bed, his old dresser, his old closet, his old bars on the window.

Pleasant blue and white lace curtains, billowing in the night air.

And bars.

A lovely curtain rod.

And bars.

Billy frowned, setting down his bags by the oil heater in the center of the room.

He was sure there was a logical explanation for this new decor, but it could wait until morning. Actually, a bit later, when he crawled into bed and turned off the light and beheld the utter blackness of closing time in the country, the alien noises of the night, his imagination dreaming up the worst, leftover childhood fears filling him up again, knowing in his mind that it was normal but unable to restrain the hammer in his heart that built up his fear, the bars gave him a welcome sense of security.


 

At breakfast the next morning—congealed oatmeal and stale toast barely moistened with a glassy, butter-like substance—Mom asked, "How did you sleep, dear?"

"Fine," Billy said. "Why did you put bars on the windows?"

"There … there's been so much crime lately, you wouldn't believe it," said his mom.

"But my room is on the second floor."

"Remember the Lindbergh baby," his father said. "Now, eat your oatmeal, and then you can give me a hand with the chores."

Billy helped his dad collect the eggs, carefully writing down the total on the calendar in the pantry. Most of the other livestock barns were dark and cobwebbed.

"Sheep and pigs just don't bring in money like they used," said his dad. "Better off sticking to cash crops and renting out the fields I don't want to handle myself."

His dad was getting old, too.

Billy considered bringing up the topic of his mother again, to see if he could get any closer to understanding her affliction, but decided to wait, let them all adjust to each other before pursuing what were—judging by his father's reactions—very sensitive matters.

The chores didn't take long to complete. Dad disappeared back into the cornfield construction site, so Billy returned to his room and unpacked. Later, he managed to convince his mother he wasn't hungry for lunch, took a nap, then cleaned up and headed into town in the late afternoon. He wanted a chance to do some more poking around before his date with Chris.


 

Dad was right, Billy thought as he ranged along Main Street. Every single building he came across was occupied, either by long-time institutions like Swaydall's Bakery or new entries like Steve's 24-Hour Licensed Bailbonds Agency. Here was Johnson's Furniture World, where Chris worked. In the display window, among the divans and occasional tables, was a lovely Stickley electric chair. Billy hesitated, wondering if he should go in and say hi to Chris, then decided to move along as he imagined some deadly ensemble.

He went up Second Avenue to the library, wanting to get the scoop on the prison, which seemed to be having a strange effect on his hometown.

The brick and ivy sanctuary had always been a special place for Billy. On rainy summer days and long, cold winter weekends, he spent hours that seemed like minutes exploring the darkwood shelves, hitching rides to worlds he never realized existed. The murky-smelling volumes introduced him to a world greater than himself, and more importantly, greater than Plum Creek. Verne, Burroughs, Twain: they were all his guides to these new worlds. He believed in authors, considered them larger-than-death keepers of universal truths and personal realities.

The window usually displayed a seasonal or holiday theme created out of colorful construction paper and paper-mache, and a collection of books that suited the occasion. Billy wondered what season Plum Creek was in these days. The library showcased a full spectrum of guns and ammo, shivs and shackles, and, in a tasteful tableau: How To Make Disposable Silencers, Vol. 2; Bazooka: How To Build Your Own; Surgical Speed Shooting: How To Achieve High-Speed Marksmanship in a Gunfight.

A poster announced an upcoming author appearance and demonstration by the bazooka author. Quiet, please.

There wasn't much activity in the library, a few hunched souls in the dark carrels. At the desk sat Mrs. Furlee.

Mrs. Furlee. After all these years, she still presided over the stacks.

"Hi, uh, Mrs. Furlee?"

She lifted her gaze, poking at her pop-bottle eyeglasses. "Yes, young man? Can I help you?"

"You probably don't remember me, Mrs. Furlee, but my name's Billy Padgett, and I used to spend a lot of time here when I was a kid."

She studied his face for a moment, then nodded. "Of course. I remember you, Billy." She smiled beatifically. "You were quite enamored with Jules Verne, as I recall."

"You helped open up the whole wide world to me, introduced me to so many great writers. In fact, you were instrumental in inspiring my interest in the written word, which led to my pursuit of a career in journalism. I just moved back from Australia, where I was doing feature writing for a major news service. So I just want to thank you, Mrs. Furlee. Thank you for everything."

"That's wonderful. I'm so delighted for you. You know, Billy, the library is your Imagination Station. When you visit your local library, you enter the Kingdom of Reading. Open a book, on with the show! What can I help you find today?"

"I'm looking for some information on the prison."

"Which one?" Mrs. Furlee asked, her expression cold, her voice an octave lower. "You got your federal prisons, you got your state prisons, you got your maximum security prisons, you got your minimum security prisons—the pussies—you got prisons for every type of crime you can imagine and a few you can't. You can't beat a state prison, if you ask me. They're full of tax cheats and shit. You don't have to watch your back every goddam minute of every goddam day."

"Uh …"

"Well?"

"Yes, uh, I'm … I'm interested in our prison. I think it's called the Plum Creek Correctional Facility."

"Mind your own business, Padgett, or you're going to enter the Kingdom of Pain," the librarian said with a scowl.

"Never mind. I'll look myself." Billy headed over to the computer catalog terminal, wondering when Mrs. Furlee had toddled off the deep end. He punched in "Plum Creek Correctional Facility," and the only result that popped up was: On the Banks of the Plum Creek Correctional Facility, by Jack Henry Ingalls. Location: Fiction, In-Ja.

He hit the link to the author's name and a series of titles appeared:

Big House on the Prairie
Convict Boy
On the Banks of the Plum Creek Correctional Facility
These Happy Golden Fears
Up the River in the Big Woods

Searching the shelves, Billy wasn't able to locate any of the Jack Henry Ingalls books listed. The computer didn't show them as being checked out, either, so he reluctantly paid the librarian another visit.

"Hi, Mrs. Furlee, I noticed that you don't have any Jack Henry Ingalls books on the shelves. Do you know where I can find them?"

"Figure it out. If they aren't on the shelf, then they must be checked out."

"The computer said they were on the shelf."

"Were they on the shelf when you looked for 'em?"

"No."

"Somebody mighta swiped them."

"Do you know anything about the author, this Jack Henry Ingalls? Does he live in town?"

The librarian ignored his question, scooping up a pile of books and disappearing into the shadowed stacks.

Billy left the library. It was getting late, and he didn't want to keep Chris waiting.

As he fumbled with his car keys, another wholesome figure from his past approached him.

Mrs. Hanson. His fourth-grade teacher at Plum Creek Elementary.

Wearing the same baggy blue floral print dress that he remembered seeing at the blackboard so many days.

"Hi, Mrs. Hanson!"

He thought she was elderly back then, but she didn't look all that much older now. A little more stooped, hair white as a bleached bone, yet the same sprightly walk, the identical beige orthopedic shoes.

The gun, however, was a very different touch.

She held it steady, inches from Billy's beltline.

"Your money or your life," she said calmly, with her usual excellent diction.

He didn't recall her being much of a practical joker.

The barrel met his belly button.

"Mrs. Hanson … What are you doing? What's this about?"

Sound of a gun being cocked.

Billy quickly reached into his back pocket and retrieved his wallet. Hands shaking, he spread it open, holding it out toward her. She grabbed his cash with her free hand and made her getaway.

Billy didn't chase her, didn't yell at her, didn't do anything other than gape in disbelief.

At least she let me keep the wallet, Billy thought as he climbed into his vehicle. He contemplated running to the law enforcement center to report the crime, then, figuring they wouldn't believe him, decided to drive to Chris's house instead, which was located near the middle school on the south side of town.

There was a compact burgundy car in her gravel driveway. Billy parked behind it and walked to the front door, noticing that her cozy cottage had iron on the windows, too.

Chris answered on the second try. "Hi, Billy."

"Hi, Chris."

"Come on in."

Her house was furnished simply, with few personal effects other than a calendar with some of the days crossed out with a black marker.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "You look a little strange. I suppose it's a trip living with your folks again."

"I just got robbed."

"That didn't take long."

"It was my fourth-grade teacher. Mrs. Hanson."

"I remember her. She was always so strict. Maybe she's having some mental hiccups or something."

"That seems to be a common problem around here since I got back."

"A little culture shock, huh."

"I guess. So, where do you want to eat?"

"We'd better have supper here. I make a pretty mean stir fry."

"No, no, I don't expect you to cook for me," said Billy. "I just got back home. What a happy accident we had, running into each other like that. I'm in the mood to celebrate. We'll have a nice dinner, and then we'll go to the Princess Theater and catch a movie."

"If you're planning on taking me out, you'd better catch Mrs. Hanson first and get your money back."

"She's armed and dangerous. How about if I pay for the next date?"

"Deal."

"Is Chez Pierre still open?"

"Well, it's not closed."

Chez Pierre. Billy remembered they offered what passed for an elegant dining experience in Plum Creek. His parents used to take him there on his birthday once he was old enough to refrain from playing hockey with his plate of peas.

"I didn't really dress up."

"You'll be fine."

"Okay, let's go then," said Billy. "I'm starving."

They hiked to the restaurant, just across the street from the Legion Hall. The exterior of Chez Pierre, with its Eiffel Tower fountains and dancing rainbow waters, hinted at a great culinary adventure to be found within.

On the inside, though, the restaurant resembled every school cafeteria in America. Instead of individual tables with white tablecloths and candles, there were a series of long bare industrial planks to contend with. The lights were dim, although this hopeful touch of ambience was tempered when Billy realized it was due to the overhead fluorescent lights, fully half of which needed replacement bulbs.

"You seat yourself here," said Chris.

"Okay."

They found a spot along the far wall, away from the other sullen customers.

There wasn't a server in sight. "They must be a little short-staffed tonight," said Billy. "Is there anything you could recommend?"

"Well … Everyone's taste is different," Chris said evenly.

"Here she comes," Billy said as a stout woman in a blue work shirt sauntered over to them with two plates.

As she absently dropped the dishes onto the table, Billy said, "Excuse me, ma'am, but this isn't our order. We just got here." He laughed nervously. "We haven't even gotten a menu yet."

"Oh, pardon me," said the woman. "And maybe you'd like to see the wine list, too." She shook her head in disgust and marched off.

"What was that about?" Billy said, turning back to Chris.

"They do have their own style, don't they?"

"Well, as long as the food is good." Billy looked down at his plate, and from what he could determine, the food wasn't just like Mom used to make, it was like the food Mom was making now. A circular gray and red mess that Billy guessed was a lunatic's interpretation of what a pizza should be.

Just to make sure, he forked in a small piece, and nearly gagged.

"I'm going to let mine cool down before I dig in," Chris said.

"If it was any colder, the Good Humor Man would be selling it."

"Hey, good one."

Billy got the waitress's attention the next time she was in the vicinity. "Say, ma'am, I'd like to send this back," he said, pushing the plate at her.

"Send it back?" she asked, as if she had been requested to decipher some lost Sanskrit tome.

"Was this supposed to be pizza?"

"Pepperoni pizza with mushrooms, onions, and green pepper," she confirmed. "What's the matter with it?"

"This isn't pizza sauce; it's ketchup. The mushrooms and onions and green pepper are nowhere to be found. The meat looks like it was left outside overnight. And it's cold."

"There have not been any riots or lives in jeopardy," the waitress said calmly. "The customers are not always pleased with the food, but that's going to happen from time to time. No one's going hungry."

"I'm going hungry."

"That's because you haven't touched your food."

"I haven't touched my food because it's no good." He tried to force the plate on her again.

She hid her hands behind her back.

Chris reached across the table and took the plate from him. "I'll make you something when we get home," she said quietly.

Billy looked at her questioningly, then followed her eyes to the kitchen doors, where a trio of muscular-looking cooks were eyeing them, each palming their kitchen implement of choice—and we're not talking cheese graters.

"Thanks for your help," Billy acidly said to the waitress, and picked up his fork, dug in, ate a mouthful, gave the gang of three the international A-OK sign, then gulped down some water. He looked at Chris and said, "Is there somewhere else we can go to get some decent food?"

"Not around here. You'll get used to it."


 

They had time to kill before the movie started, so they strolled around downtown, volleying bland pleasantries back and forth before Billy decided he had to confide in her.

"Let's sit for a minute," Billy said as they reached a bench in the central city park, a bronze statue of town founder Joseph B. Plum eavesdropping over their shoulders.

They could see the marquee of the Princess Theater, the white bulbs chasing each other around the title, Clyde and Bonnie.

"Nice night," his date said, leaning back, arching her neck to moon at the azure early-evening sky.

"Chris, I have to ask you something."

"Ask away."

"It's about the town. The prison."

"Okay."

"Look at me."

And she did.

"I know I'm an outsider and everything," he said, "so maybe I'm overreacting, but it's like, you know, although you can't actually see the prison from anywhere in town, the prison is in everything. Quite frankly, I'm beginning to wonder where the prison stops and the town begins."

"When you get down to it, we're all prisoners of a world we don't understand, aren't we?"

"I'm not talking existentially, Chris. I mean literally. I've got bars on my bedroom window, for God's sake. You wouldn't believe some of the things I've seen since I came home. Am I the only one who notices? Is everyone else wearing blinders?"

"Well, you can't really see the prison from town. It's over the hill."

"I think tomorrow I'm going to head up the hill to that prison of ours and see if I can get some answers."

"Oh, Billy, please don't do that."

"Why not?"

"Just don't, okay?"

He moved in, sensing that he was getting close to something important. "Have you ever heard of Jack Henry Ingalls?"

Chris turned to the street, where a black-and-white Plum Creek Police cruiser had slowed in that nerve-shredding way that only police squads can do, the badge inside giving them the once over twice.

She averted her eyes, studying her watch. "The movie's about to start." She got up, effortlessly pulling Billy to his feet, strangling his wrists. "Come on."


 

The theater was packed, and the crowd was ready to go, too. Billy and Chris sat on the aisle, Chris on the edge of her seat, Billy just on the edge. They had skipped the popcorn after one look at the sludge-caked popper. A wet, sticky substance made a smacking sound as he moved his feet, and he hoped it was only soda pop.

Clyde and Bonnie were the role models they always dreamed to be. A decidedly lower-rent version of the Beatty-Dunaway film. Shot locally, apparently. He recognized the bank, the old railroad depot, the hospital. Blood was the same wherever you roamed. The actors mumbled their lines and made sure their worst sides faced the camera. The direction lacked skill in every area except the exit wounds.

The crowd loved every law-flouting minute of it.

Billy looked over at Chris, wondering if she was enjoying the feature presentation, too. Her features weren't looking too presentable. She looked world-weary, or maybe just town-weary.

At the final showdown, Clyde and Bonnie filled the police with little round holes, then made their getaway, retiring happy and rich along the banks of beautiful Plum Creek.

The end.

Applause.

Big and beefy.

Doors opened on each side of the screen, the crowd filing out into the harsh brightness in a disorderly way. Billy was jostled down the aisle, feeling Chris behind him, passing beneath the red exit sign to the left of the screen.

It took a minute for his eyes to adjust to the change in light, and when he looked around, Chris was gone.

He looked around some more and saw that she wasn't the only thing that was gone. He wasn't where he expected to be, where he should be. He tried to think. What used to be behind the theater? A dirt parking area, and then the railroad tracks which separated the downtown district from the residential areas on the north side of town.

But fences had been erected, tall metal fences topped with razor wire, and a series of drab gray guard towers that evoked anything but bland emotions in Billy.

The rest of the theater patrons were milling toward a black hole in a blockhouse on the far end of the yard.

Billy whirled around and fled back to the rear of the theater, where ushers in blue work shirts were pulling the doors shut from the inside. He threw an arm into the gap just as the door was about to thump shut.

The usher, a pockmarked, red-haired young man, peered out at him and said, "You can't come in this way. This is an exit."

"I … I forgot something. My sunglasses. I have to get my sunglasses."

"Have you tried the lost and found?"

"No, I was just in the theater a minute ago. If you'd just let me in …"

"Do you have a ticket?"

"I had a ticket. I just saw the movie. Bonnie and Clyde, I mean, Clyde and Bonnie … My sunglasses …" Billy's arm was aching. "Please …"

"We've had a problem with people sneaking into the theater through this very door," the usher explained. "Now, why don't you leave your name and number, and if we find your sunglasses, somebody will call you, and then you can come back and pick them up at the front desk, okay?"

Billy heard a noise behind him. He looked back. A pair of uniformed guards were trotting his way, their black heavy boots raising dust. The rest of the prison yard was empty. The blockhouse had swallowed up the rest of the moviegoers.

The bulls closed in, swinging their batons like truncheons.

Panicking, Billy lunged backward into the door. It gave way, sending him spilling onto the cool, gummy concrete floor, the usher sprawling up the aisle.

Billy scrambled over the usher, who grabbed at his ankles, his shoelaces, his soles, and then Billy was bolting up through the empty theater, frantically wondering what happened to Chris. Had they taken her? Did she get lost in the crowd? Why hadn't she come looking for him?

Billy tore through the lobby and hit the front doors running, praying that this side of the building hadn't been taken over, too.

He was in the street. Main Street never looked so lovely. Razor wire replaced by roses. A barber shop instead of a blockhouse. Dusk now, winged bugs gathered at the street lights for their nightly cotillion.

The world was as it should be again.

Until Billy heard the sirens.


 

Back on the civilian side of things, Billy thought he would be safe. Like the comfort of waking from a nightmare.

But apparently these days, in this town, the lines between dream worlds and waking worlds weren't drawn with as thick a pencil as they were in the golden age of reality.

Police cruisers closed in as Billy passed in front of the furniture store, hoping that Chris would appear and pull him to safety. He was going to get pulled over, pulled back to a place he didn't want to go. Spotlights hit him. A shout. The sleek shadow of a barrel.

Now Billy ran as if his life depended on it, cutting down a side street, getting deeper into this strange world with every step. He once knew this town like the ceiling in his teenage bedroom, but now he knew he had to be careful. One wrong step and he could be behind the razorwire again. A fitting room curtain leads to solitary confinement. A drive-in to death row. Was there any logic? Was there any hope. Was there anybody out there who cared. He only cared to find a way out, hope, logic, someone to talk to, who understood, who could help him, someone who hadn't become part of the prison mindset. He needed to find Chris, he needed to talk to his folks, whatever they had become.

As he tried to rush back to Chris's house, the black and whites cut him off. He used different routes, even taking to the trees. They kept corralling him, prodding him, forcing him back downtown. He'd have to find help here. He didn't have a choice.

He tried city hall first. They had records and official documents. Fishing licenses, too.

"I want to talk to the mayor," Billy said in a wavering voice.

"He'll be back in five to ten, with good behavior," the clerk said without a smile.

Billy fled to his old school, Plum Creek High. A prison in his youth, trying to contain the amok hormones within. Maybe in this tipsy world, high school would now be a home of nurturing and positive giving.

The bars on the classroom windows should have clued him in.

The cheerleaders never let him get close enough to find out. Bearing broken toilet plunger handles and lunchroom knives sharpened to a fine point, skirts swishing, ponytails swaying, shrieking the school anthem, these fearleaders, keepers of the school spirit, chased him right back into the raw essentials of the town.

Billy visited the town psychologist, in his office right above the barber shop.

"I believe the town has become a prison," he told the tweed and piped man. His leather chair had tears repaired with transparent tape.

"Interesting," said the doctor. "It's not the first time I've heard such a claim, you understand."

"Thank God," said Billy, burying his head in his hands.

"It's a mass psychosis," the doctor explained. "Group hallucination. The product of the stress of modern-day life and so forth. I believe it was written up in a recent issue of The Journal of Midwestern Psychiatry. Here, I'll show you the article."

The doctor rose and walked over to his tweed bookshelf, clank thump, clank thump. "Here it is." He walked back, thump clank, thump clank, Billy rising, seeing the ball and chain just before it disappeared beneath the desk.

Billy retreated downstairs to Roy's Barbershop, where he got his clippings as a kid. There used to be a penny gum machine in the corner. Barbershop talk was free.

Red-haired Roy was just whisking off a customer, who paid him and headed to the door. "Thanks, Jack. See you next time."

Barber Roy nodded Billy to the empty chair.

Jack.

"Who was that?"

"Who?"

"The guy that was just in here."

"I dunno," said the barber. "You don't have to show no ID to get a haircut."

"You called him Jack."

"That's what I call everybody. It's like pal, or buddy, or Mac. It's just an expression … Jack."

But behind the easygoing voice were eyes caught in a panic.

Billy dashed out to the sidewalk and looked all around, but there wasn't anyone to see here. Jack had apparently moved quickly once he hit the streets.

"That was Jack Henry Ingalls, wasn't it?" Billy asked, coming back inside.

"I don't like to pry with my customers."

"Where does he live?"

No reaction.

Billy pulled out his wallet, then remembered his fourth-grade teacher had cleaned him out. He had tucked an Australian dollar into a side pocket, and this he tried to pass to the barber.

Roy peered at it like it was a disciplinary letter from the warden. "What do you expect me to do with that?"

"Sorry, it's Australian. I lost my American money. The bank will change it for you."

"If you got a deck, then we can talk."

"A deck?"

"You fish are all the same. Smokes, man. A pack of smokes."

Billy got it. He went down to Kut-Rate Korner Drug and stole a pack.

"North side of town," said the barber, greedily taking the package from him. "Up by the water tower. The only house in the neighborhood that doesn't have bars on the windows. Don't tell nobody you heard it here." He waggled his scissors at Billy. "You look like you could use a trim, Mac."

Billy sat down in the vintage oak swivel chair, hoping he could get more information from the barber. "So how many cig … decks … is this haircut going to cost me?"

"It's on the house."

Some foreign instinct told Billy to be careful.

"No strings?"

"No strings."

"Thanks. Not too short, okay?"

"Sorry. Short is in. You want to have a clean connection, don't want no flames shooting from the top of your head."


 

Billy kept his hair long and went to church. The church of his youth. A sanctuary for lost souls. Also for those who were losing but hadn't quite surrendered yet. The white-haired minister did his thing in the vestibule. Pictures of the Savior on the walls behind his desk. Billy sat down across from both of them. He felt better already.

"You look troubled, my son."

"I need help."

"You're in trouble."

"I'm in big trouble."

"Understand, son, that Jesus didn't come to pull the switch. He came to seek and save the lost."

Billy began to relax.

"The next time he comes, he'll pull the switch."


 

Executions bring out the worst in people.


 

He remembered the iron on her windows.


 

Billy hid in a flameless bush behind the church. His mind raced the evolution of the town, and it was a losing battle. He tried to apply logic to a mad town disease.

A thought formed:

Why are they after me?

I'm an escaped prisoner.

So I have to think like an escaped prisoner. An escaped prisoner isn't likely to hang around town if he's lucky enough to make it beyond the prison walls. He is not going to be coming into the housing areas. He is going to leave. He is going to run. He is going to go down south. He is going to go north to Canada. Or back to Australia.

But Billy stayed put. He remembered the iron on her windows, the hair above his mother's lip.

He stayed put until the night did him good. He left the brush, Plum Creek dark on the outside as well as the inside now, the advantage his, methodically making his way to the south side, heading toward Seventh Street.

Billy felt like a criminal. He knew the thrill, the terror, the bloated pride. He was prepared to break and enter, but when he tested the knob found her door unlocked.

This was the haven he had been searching for. Before slipping inside, he checked the neighborhood. His car was still parked where he had left it, not even a parking ticket under the wiper. No squads in sight. No prison guards on the boulevard. The only barbs were on the rose bushes. Just his friend the night.

And then strong hands separated him from his friend, yanking him inside.

"I've been so worried," Chris said, squeezing the breath out of him. "I saw you come across the yard. I was so scared …"

He broke the clinch, and they sat on the couch. He told her the story as he knew it, and she just listened quietly, nodding.

"I never would have taken you to the theater if I had known it was taken over," she said. "You understand that, don't you?"

"I looked everywhere for you."

"I'm so sorry," she said, head down. "I panicked. I ran as soon as the doors opened. I saw the fence. It wasn't there last week." Tears in her pleading eyes. "I should have come after you, I know that."

"It's okay," he said. "We're both here now. We're okay."

"Yes, yes!"

Billy suddenly realized he was famished. He hadn't eaten since breakfast, if he didn't count the bite of institutional pizza at the restaurant, and even in this bad dream he couldn't. "I'm starving," he said. "Do you have …"

She rose, pressing a finger to his lips. "Say no more. I'll cook you the best meal you've ever had. Just name it, and I'll make it for you. What is your request?"

Billy thought for a moment.

"I could make you liver and onions, two double-meat hamburgers with bacon and mayonnaise, two orders of French fries, vanilla ice cream, two Dr. Peppers, salad with ranch dressing, and M&M's," suggested Chris.

"Or how about thirty jumbo shrimp, cocktail sauce, baked potato, French fries, ketchup, butter, one T-bone steak, one chocolate malt, one gallon of vanilla ice cream, and three cans of Big Red," she added.

When he didn't reply, she said, in a small voice, "Twelve pieces of chicken (thighs and drumsticks), two double-meat cheeseburgers on toasted buns, one large plate of brown French fries with ketchup, two large onions (cut in slices), two large tomatoes (cut in slices), six sweet pickles, salad dressing, five sliced jalapeño peppers, peach cobbler with extra crust, and milk?"

Billy stared at her.

"Please do not attempt to order cigarettes," she said in a monotone, "because they are prohibited by policy. You may also choose to decline the meal. Please remember that the meal requested may not reflect the actual meal served."

He looked at her oddly. "What's wrong with you? What are you talking about? Where did you hear this stuff?"

She looked back at him helplessly. "I … I don't know, Billy."

He knew.

Was there a relationship between the severity of the crime and the extravagance of the last meal request? Billy wondered.

"I think I'll skip dinner," he said. "I wasn't that hungry anyway."

"I don't know where it came from," she said again and again. "I don't know where it came from …"


 

After skipping dinner, they tried to watch TV, but Billy had the feeling it was watching them. Every channel was taken over. Crime does pay. Even the weatherman on the local news committed a third-degree sexual assault, right in the middle of the seven-day forecast.

So they went to bed after that display.

Billy needed to escape. It was expected of him. He had the rabbit in him.

To a cot with creaky springs. Gray pilling spread. You would think that someone who worked in the home furnishing business would be more conscientious about her bedroom decor.

"This is better," Chris said, holding him close. "I feel like we can shut out the world here."

"I can handle the world," said Billy. "It's the town that worries me."

"Let's not talk about that now."

"I want to find out what happened, what we can do to stop it."

"That can wait, can't it? For just a little bit?"

"I want to know about Jack Henry Ingalls."

"Jack Henry Ingalls … That name sort of sounds familiar," said Chris dreamily. "Did we go to high school with him?"

"No, I was asking you about him while we were in the park, waiting for the movie."

"Oh."

"He's a local author. Lives right here in town, apparently. He wrote a book about the Plum Creek Correctional Facility. I want to find that book. I want to find him."

"Did you try the library?"

"All of his books were missing from the shelves, and they weren't checked out, either. Now I'm beginning to wonder why."

"I … I just can't remember."

"That's okay," whispered Billy. "It can wait."


 

Billy knew he was in trouble when he saw the Mother tattoo on the small of her back.

"Chin check," she said, slugging him in the jaw.

"Ow! What did you do that for?"

"Either give it to Jesus or give it up," she said, pinning him down.

"Chris, what are you doing? You're hurting me."

"You're gonna be turned out."

"Turned out? What are you talking about?"

"You know what I mean, sweet boy."

"No, I don't."

"We're hooking up."

"Okay, Chris."

"I'll be the pitcher. You can be my catcher."

She assaulted him in a variety of ways with a wide array of objects. He wanted to fight her off, but part of him knew that it would be better this way. He'd avoid the inevitable series of very serious and bloody fights, paying someone for protection, and of course the repeated exposure to gang rapes.

It was painful, physically and emotionally, but eventually she wore herself out. Only when she was firmly asleep did the strange thoughts subside, and he lay there bleeding in the darkness, confused for a long time. Then, heartbeat by heartbeat, he came to know exactly what happened, but not why.

Carefully, Billy moved to the edge of the bed and slid to the floor, then fished around for his clothes. As he found a sneaker, catching the laces in his fingers, the bed creaked, and Chris rolled over, faintly moaning.

Billy waited, his breath coming in short takes, then figured his pitcher was just having a pleasant dream about their encounter, and escaped into the hallway.

But he didn't feel like he'd escaped from anything as he snaked out the kitchen door into her backyard, just another prison yard, figuring he would take his chances on getting tuned up by the bulls. It was a small town, razorwire fences everywhere now, and he knew she could track him down and have him biting the mattress again in no time.

Behind her garage, beneath a flickering streetlight, a hint of dawn in the incarcerated sky, Billy began to think, a name cycling in his mind with the same pounding rhythm as Chris's assault.

Ingalls, Jack Henry. Location: Fiction, In-Ja.

Billy knew he had to find Jack Henry Ingalls. He was the key, somehow.

By the water tower.

A house without bars.

A concept hard to grasp, these days.

Billy got moving. He stayed on the sidestreets and alleys, tacking north. Going uphill, a hill that had at its summit the Plum Creek Correctional Facility.

The town was waking up. People were fetching their parole hearing papers from their front steps, walking their Rottweilers. Through the bars on breakfast nook windows he saw rough homemakers with stubble and scars cooking breakfast. Dressed in flowered frocks, curlers stuck to their crewcuts. Kissing their pitchers goodbye as they headed out the door. Hanging their orange jumpsuits on the line to dry. Pounding rocks in their backyard gardens. Gossiping with the other old ladies over barbed white picket fences.

The further in the direction of the prison he traveled, the more the boundaries between the two worlds seemed to have broken down.

Billy saw the water tower. It still said Plum Creek, but didn't specify the town or the prison.

Even from here, though, he couldn't spot the correctional complex itself. It was hidden just beyond the hill. Why did it need to hide anymore? It owned the town. That was clear.

Just as the barber had promised, a bar-free house sat just below the water tower. A flat-roofed art deco house, an upstairs balcony sporting a nautical railing, the windows on the starboard side looking like portholes.

Billy hurried up the walk, hoping he could secure permission to come aboard and convince the captain to sail into saner waters.

He lifted the mermaid knocker and let it drop.

Billy went another couple of rounds with the mermaid until he concluded nobody was home. He peered in the portals, seeing bookshelves, dark wood and gentle light, no sign of the big house.

Going around back, Billy came upon an open cabin door. Maybe Jack Henry Ingalls was home after all. In the garden. The garage. Or maybe getting the lifeboats ready.

Billy climbed aboard.

"Mr. Ingalls?"

A killer shark clock tocked at him.

"Anyone home?"

A sandwich on the mess table. Half-eaten. A cup of coffee, more than that.

Billy stood in the galley, trying to think clearly, using logic that he only dimly understood, a part of his mind that had been sleeping for many years. A suspicious mind would say that Jack Henry Ingalls had left in a hurry. And that Billy should, too.

But what if the author was upstairs? Or in the laundry room. Or the bathroom. Or his office. I'm finally here, Billy thought. I can't run away now. I don't have anywhere else to run, except back to where I began. I need answers.

Besides, he thought, moving a few timid steps into the living quarters, I don't see any trace of the ball and chain in the house. It even smelled sane.

Still, like any good con, Billy was skittish after being caught in the local justice system and had just decided to scram when he saw the books.

Scattered like coasters across an occasional table.


 

Big House on the Prairie
Convict Boy
Up the River in the Big Woods
These Happy Golden Fears

And most importantly …

…On the Banks of the Plum Creek Correctional Facility

It was like Joseph Smith finding the golden plates.

Billy hungrily gathered the books together and sat down on the hardwood deck.

He flipped to the back of the dust jacket of On the Banks of the Plum Creek Correctional Facility. There he was, Jack Henry Ingalls. A handsome, wise man with strong features, hungry, penetrating eyes, and a mustache that made him look like one part intellectual, one part outlaw.

Billy felt so much closer to the truth just by gazing at his picture.

"The finest articulator of the penal nightmare in America today, Jack Henry Ingalls is the author of four critically acclaimed novels, Big House on the Prairie, Convict Boy, Up the River in the Big Woods, and These Happy Golden Fears. An inmate at the Plum Creek Correctional Facility in southern Minnesota, Mr. Ingalls is currently working on a new novel."


 

Jack was still inside …

Billy opened the book to page one.

And then the author made a personal appearance …


 

When the punks start violating your private space, it's time to move on, Jack thought ruefully, cleaning his knife in the laundry tub. That was rule number one for any convict. Respect for personal property. You break the rule, and you got a fight on your hands, whether you want one or not.

Why can't they just do their own time and stay out of my business? Shoot, there was never an intent to kill. The deceased in this case was inflicted a single wound under circumstances which would have demanded the infliction of more wounds if the single wound had been inflicted with the intent to kill and not merely to repel him. Yeah, that's what he'd tell the badges. Sure, they'll add another dime to my sentence, but what difference did it make anymore? Forever or forever and a day? Hey, that's a good one. Have to write that one down.

After he did, Jack dried his knife and returned it to its sheath. Then he shrugged off his shirt and applied a small amount of hydrogen peroxide directly to the stain. Let it soak for approximately one half hour. The stain will be history.

Have to put in for that transfer now, he thought. Hear there's a town up in the northeastern part of the state building a new prison. Jack had liked Plum Creek, but when the flag-waving facades were stripped away, these small Midwestern towns were all the same. Punishment is the leading rural growth industry in these parts. They never learn. They're so hungry for money, so frantic for that cash flow. They never realize that once the prison is built, now you've got to fill it, and then there's no turning back.

He ran a rag over his spattered boots, bringing the shine back.

The whole incarceration economy feeds off convicts, Jack mused.

Plum Creek didn't realize it at the time, but this relationship was no one-way street.

Jack rinsed out the laundry tub, the last of the blood whirlpooling down the drain.

The fine residents of Plum Creek never expected the prison to begin feeding off them.


 

In a cornfield somewhere in southeastern Minnesota, a man laid down his saw and hammer.

Ted had built it.

And now they came.

He wondered how his pint-sized replica of a prison could have held them all. He had only built six cells, three on each level. Even if they had all double-bunked, he was already a slew of beds short.

They streamed out of his makeshift hoosegow into the stripped field, the summer moon tracking across their hardened faces as they surveyed their new surroundings. Dressed in suits and tatters. Stout and lean. Handsome and hideous.

But their eyes were all the same.

They were hungry.

And now they were free.

Ted didn't recognize them all, particularly the newer faces, but some of the kissers leapt out at him like pictures in the post office.

Leopold and Loeb.

Capone and Dillinger.

Gacy and Gein.

Speck and Bundy.

He had a regular hall of fame, right here in his own backyard.

Ted sure wished Billy could have been here to share this father-son moment with him. He wondered what was keeping the boy so busy. Probably off chasing skirts again.

The mystical miscreants didn't pay Ted much notice. A couple of the legends looked over and sized him up, but in a non-threatening way. Ted had already given them what they needed.

Then the buggy eyes of Ed Gein locked onto him, and the Wisconsin trailblazer shuffled over, close enough that Ted caught the dead flesh smells emanating from his grizzled carcass.

Smacking his lips, Ed leaned in toward Ted, raised his arms, opened his mouth, revealing yellow and green teeth, dripping, and said, "Hearts is good eatin'."

Ted flinched, falling back on his heels.

Ed cackled and rejoined his comrades in harms.

Ted began to worry as more of the dark celebrities poured out of his creation. What if they wanted to stay overnight? He didn't have room for so many people. And Marge's cooking was leaving a little bit to be desired these days.

Fortunately, they didn't look like they were interested in hanging around the old homestead. They would most likely not be going into the housing areas. They are going to leave. They are going to run. They are going to go down south. They are going to go north to Canada.

But they saw the lights of the town.

And then their eyes lit up, too.

And so Leopold and Loeb, Capone and Dillinger, Gacy and Gein, Speck and Bundy, and the rest of the parolees from oblivion strolled away, a swaggering gait, leaving the cornfield, hitting the dark road that passed outside the farm, a short walk that would take them into the heart of a town called Plum Creek.